Covering Mexican Fútbol in American English

Apertura 2016 End of Season Review – Part I

During this long lull before the Apertura 2016 Gran Final, let’s take a look back at some of the stats from the regular season.

Tijuana was the superlíder for most of the regular season, but the Xolos never opened up a huge gap at the top of the table, with their biggest lead just four points in Jornada 12. In fact, aside from the bottom three of Jaguares, Veracruz, and Santos, the entire league was fairly close for most of the season.

Point totals week-by-week

A look at the table positions throughout the season shows some interesting trends, such as Tijuana, Tigres, and Pachuca’s consistency at the top of the table, León and Necaxa’s late climbs to the playoff places, Morelia’s midseason plunge, and Jaguares, Santos, and Veracruz’s flatlines at the bottom of the table.

Table positions week-by-week

Tijuana, Pachuca, and América all occupied a spot in the top eight – the playoff places – at the end of every single Jornada. On the other hand, Cruz Azul, Jaguares de Chiapas, and Santos never managed to crack the top eight at any point this season.

Going by time spent in playoff positioning, the expectation would have been for América, Pachuca, Tijuana, Pumas, Tigres, Chivas, Morelia, and Toluca to make the Liguilla. That is almost how it worked out, with the exception of Necaxa (six weeks) and León (three weeks) beating out Morelia and Toluca, who each spent eight weeks in the top eight.

In terms of the relegation fight, the Apertura 2016 ended with Morelia at the foot of the Tabla de Cociente, although they did improve on their standing from the start of the season. Veracruz and Jaguares both plunged down the standings and Santos and Cruz Azul also dipped down into the mix.

Week-by-week point-per-game averages

No one will be relegated until the end of the Clausura 2017 season, but right now Morelia, Veracruz, and Jaguares are looking like the most likely candidates. It’s also worth remembering that despite Necaxa’s current position in the Tabla de Cociente – 7th – that they have a much smaller number of games played and thus a much more volatile points-per-game average. A bad run of form in the Clausura could drop them back into the relegation conversation.

At the moment, the bottom half of the Tabla de Cociente looks like this: